Self-Construal and Cooperation: Is the Interdependent Self More Cooperative Than the Independent Self?

The present study examined whether a temporary activation of independent or interdependent self-construals by priming has an influence on cooperation in social dilemmas. It was expected that individuals primed with independence would be primarily concerned with their own outcomes, whereas individuals primed with interdependence would also be concerned with the outcomes of their interaction partner. The former should therefore exhibit lower levels of cooperation. Additionally, the influence of social value orientation on cooperation was measured. Participants played 32 rounds of a give-some dilemma with an alleged interaction partner. As predicted, participants primed with independence exhibited lower levels of cooperation than participants primed with interdependence. Results are discussed in terms of their significance for research on self-construals and social dilemmas.     

‘Developing’ the Self in the Knowledge Economy

The term ‘knowledge economy’, like the term ‘globalisation’, has become a catchword in political and educational debate over the last decade or so, especially in debates upon educational policy where the role of education in preparing young people to take their part in the Knowledge Economy is often seen as paramount over other traditional schooling activities. It is said in such debates that the production of knowledge, information and skills, will become more valuable than traditional primary and secondary production. A lot is said about the knowledge required in the Knowledge Economy, and about how institutions, businesses, activities and human beings are to be ordered or structured in accordance with views of knowledge and new Management theories. But little is said of the young people expected to take their part in the knowledge economy. Do they have a choice? Is lying on a surfboard excluded from their life options? How will they be developed, trained or educated to take their part? Will they be committed to developing their selves in accordance with the model of the IT Knowledge Entrepreneur (hereinafter TIKE) presented as a model for education by policy makers in the Knowledge Economy? This article will argue against this latter notion of the development of the self, arguing that because knowledge is prioritised over ethics, there is both an inadequate notion of the self and the educational development of the self and, because of its implicit view only of ethics, an inadequate ethical and moral view of education [246 words].     

Teachers’ Identity, Self and the Process of Learning

In this paper we try, by drawing on some insights from practical knowledge, to bridge a gap between common conceptions of teaching on the one hand, and of learning on the other. In Western traditions of educational thought and discourse, practical knowledge—i.e. the dynamics of thinking, speaking, acting, and personal writing—is frequently separated from disciplinary knowledge: i.e. the knowledge of academic disciplines. But this separation often fails to recognize an inherent dialectic in teaching and learning. Through fresh explorations of human capacities to act and think, to speak and write, we try to illuminate different aspects of a teacher’s identity, including the teacher’s individuality and the teacher as an agent of an educational institution. The teacher has to present and represent knowledge in education, both as an agent of an institution and as a person. By examining the disclosure and transformation of the self in light of understandings of identity as sameness (i.e. that which doesn’t change with time), or as selfhood (i.e. that which is confronted by successive challenges), we hope to draw some productive conclusions about the teacher’s self-understanding as the source for personal learning in education. We aim to explore the importance of transformation of the teachers’ self for the quality of learning relationships between the teacher and the always Other student.     

Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self: A transcendental apologetic?

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Free Energy and the Self: An Ecological–Enactive Interpretation

According to the free energy principle all living systems aim to minimise free energy in their sensory exchanges with the environment. Processes of free energy minimisation are thus ubiquitous in the biological world. Indeed it has been argued that even plants engage in free energy minimisation. Not all living things however feel alive. How then did the feeling of being alive get started? In line with the arguments of the phenomenologists, I will claim that every feeling must be felt by someone. It must have mineness built into it if it is to feel a particular way. The question I take up in this paper asks how mineness might have arisen out of processes of free energy minimisation, given that many systems that keep themselves alive lack mineness. The hypothesis I develop in this paper is that the life of an organism can be seen as an inferential process. Every living system embodies a probability distribution conditioned on a model of the sensory, physiological, and morphological states that are highly probably given the life it leads and the niche it inhabits. I argue for an ecological and enactive interpretation of free energy. I show how once the life of an organism reaches a certain level of complexity mineness emerges as an intrinsic part of the process of life itself.

     

Erikson’s Schedule of Human Strengths and the Childhood Origins of the Resourceful Self

This article focuses on Erik H. Erikson’s schedule of human strengths presented in his essay, “Human Strength and the Cycle of Generations” (1964). It discusses his assignment of human strengths to the eight stages of the life cycle, his view that the word “virtue” expresses their animated and spirited quality, and his view that these strengths are integral to the epigenetic developmental process. On the basis of his understanding of the human strengths as integral to the epigenetic developmental process, it proposes that the four human strengths developed in childhood are critically important to the development of the resourceful self. The article also suggests that we gain new insights into the eight human strengths when we view them as interrelated pairs, i.e., hope/will, purpose/competence, fidelity/love and care/wisdom.     

Freedom and the Dynamics of the Self and the ‘Other’; Re-constructing the Debate Between Tagore and Gandhi

Tagore and Gandhi shared a relationship across 26 years. They argued about many things including the means for the attainment of swaraj/freedom. In terms of this central concern with the nature of freedom they came fairly close to an issue that has perhaps dominated the (European) Enlightenment. For the Enlightenment has sought to clarify what is meant by individual freedom and attempted to secure such freedom to the individual. This article argues that the Tagore-Gandhi debate can perhaps be reconstructed around the issue of freedom and the collective. Gandhi was able to employ the idea of collective action with conceptual and practical ease. He seemed to have felt no tension between individual freedom and the notion of the collective of which an individual becomes a part in his/her attempt to deal with the contending ‘other’ and secure his /her freedom/swaraj. To understand Tagore’s opposition to the Gandhian idea of swaraj this article draws a philosophical parallel between Tagore and Kant on individual freedom as primarily the freedom to reason. Tagore’s argument seemed to have centered on the insight that the location of the individual in a collective hypostatized self in order to protect his or her freedom from ‘others’ reaffirms the self other divide. The insider-outsider exclusionary dynamics that are generated not only consolidate such distinctions as external to (and outside of) the collective self, but they also initiate internal dynamics that create the ‘silenced insider.’     

One Self per Customer? From Disunified Agency to Disunified Self

The notion of an agent and the notion of a self are connected, for agency is one role played by the self. Millgram argues for a disunity thesis of agency on the basis of extreme incommensurability across some major life events. We propose a similar negative thesis about the self, that it is composed of relatively independent threads reflecting the different roles and different mind‐sets of the person's life. Our understanding of those threads is based on theories of the narrative construction of the self. Our disunity thesis is that there need be no overarching narrative that unifies those narrative threads. To explain how the threads hang together to produce coherent action, we make these positive claims: (1) control normally switches smoothly and unconsciously between threads as circumstances require, (2) within one thread there is likely to be acknowledgment of other threads, (3) some situations require a temporary blending of threads, and (4) some plans and policies reach across different threads and contribute to some coordination among them. Our account of a self provides an account of agency that has merits in comparison to Millgram's. Our narrative approach allows explanations of actions beyond rational deliberation.     

Kantian Reflections on the Givenness of Zahavi’s Minimal Experiential Self

Abstract

At the core of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was a decisive break with certain fundamental Cartesian assumptions or claims about consciousness and self-consciousness, claims that have nonetheless remained perennially tempting, from a phenomenological perspective, independently of any further questions concerning the metaphysics of mind and its place in nature. The core of this philosophical problem has recently been helpfully exposed and insightfully probed in Dan Zahavi’s book, Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame (OUP, 2014). In these remarks I suggest that Zahavi’s view of what he calls ‘The Experiential Self’ defends precisely the sorts of claims to which a Kantian account of consciousness is fundamentally opposed, and while assessing the overall merits of the two contrasting outlooks is no easy matter, I side with the Kantian view.     

Self as a second-order object: Reinterpreting the Jamesian “Me”

Existing definitions of the self can be lumped into three groups: self as self-reflectivity, self as self-concept, and self as the individual. This article traces current disagreements over the definition of the self to a crucial ambiguity in William James's original delineation of the “Me.” Implicit in James's delineation was a distinction between first-order objects and second-order objects: while first-order objects are things as they are, independent of the perception of a knowing subject, second-order objects are things as perceived by a knowing subject. This article makes this distinction explicit and argues that the self is a second-order object associated with the first-person or “emic” perspective. Defined as the empirical existence of the individual (first order) perceived by the individual as “me” or “mine” (second order), the self is distinguished from the “I” which is the mental capacity for self-reflection; the self-concept which is the mental representation of the individual's existence; and the individual which is the empirical referent of the self-concept. As a second-order object, the “Me,” i.e., the self, is the unity of the existence and perception of the individual.     

Knowing Self Through the Journey: Graduate Students’ Experiences of Self-Knowledge Development

This article explores graduate students’ experiences of a self-knowledge development course that is framed by the Heroic Journey model. Through a consideration of several theorists’ perspectives and through the voices of 13 study participants, this article examines the nature of this self-study experience and its impact on participants’ lives. In light of feminist critiques of the traditional Heroic Journey model, the author pays particular attention to the experiences of women in this course. The author identifies three major findings: First, when the Heroic journey model is understood as a process and not just a theoretical construct, it gains significant power as an inclusive tool for fostering self-knowledge development. Second, self-knowledge development is not solely an individual endeavor. Self-knowledge is socially constructed through interaction with others. Third, self-knowledge development has critical spiritual dimensions, and this deeper level of knowing can lead to significant, long-lasting growth and change.

Stern on “Self”

ABSTRACT

Self is a notion of common-sense psychology that several schools of psychoanalysis have built into their theories. Stern explores and expands its meaning, tracing its development back to birth and even earlier, and outlining how the psychological development of the preverbal infant contributes to its evolution. In the process, Stern discusses two perspectives on preverbal infant psychology—that of the observational empiricist developmental psychologist, and that of the reconstructing psychoanalytic clinician working from the subjective experience of adult patients, and what each might contribute to the other. His thinking suggests the importance of nonverbal models of infant (and, eventually, adult) subjective experience.     

Patočka and Foucault: Taking Care of the Soul and Taking Care of the Self

The paper deals with Jan Pato?ka’s and Michel Foucault’s influential interpretations of the ancient Greek approach to care (epimeleia). At first sight, it might seem that Foucault’s care of the self is opposed to Pato?ka’s care of the soul. On closer reading, however, it becomes clear that the two interpretations lead to similar conclusions, as exemplified by the way the two authors interpret Plato’s Laches: both of them see it in relation to the issue of how to live one’s life. Further on, the paper deals with the development of Pato?ka’s understanding of care of the self and his approach to the philosophy of history. It is revealed that Foucault’s approach to history is opposed to Pato?ka’s on a number of issues. Despite their diverging opinions, however, the two authors problematize the ancient Greek care of the self as an important issue in Western culture, emphasizing the therapeutic role of contemporary philosophy along the way.     

What are symbols symbols of? Situated action,mythological bootstrapping and the emergence of the Self

This paper addresses the question of how symbols should be understood in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. The point of view examined focuses on the recent turn to more cognitive and developmental models in both disciplines and briefly reviews and critiques the evolutionary and cognitive arguments. The paper then presents an argument based on dynamic systems theory in which no pre-existing template or structure for either mind or behaviour is assumed. Within the dynamic systems model the Self is viewed as an emergent phenomenon deriving from the dynamic patterns existing in a complex system that includes the physiological characteristics of the infant, the intentional attributions of the caregiver and the cultural or symbolic resources that constitute the environment. The symbol can then be seen as a discrete, and in important ways an autonomous, element in the dynamic system. Conclusions are drawn for further research into the nature of the symbol with implications for both theory and practice in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis.     

Healing the Wound: Rossi on Kantian Critique,Community, and the Remedies to the “Dear Self”

Philosophia - The main purpose of these introductory remarks is to give the reader a sense of Philip Rossi’s philosophical project and its importance (§§1-2). I will then advance an...